Senator says he'll seek compromise in Amtrak bill that calls for high-speed rail, but no stop in Connecticut

A new measure by the House that could leave Connecticut out of a future Northeast Corridor high-speed rail system would hurt Amtrak as well as the state, Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Monday.

"I understand that reducing the number of stops to the minimum is the nature of high-speed rail, but frankly Connecticut is a great customer for Amtrak," said Blumenthal, who has vowed to press for compromise bill that gives Connecticut a place in any bullet train system linking Boston and Washington, D.C.

Connecticut can make a strong case for being part of a high-speed passenger line in the Northeast, according to rail advocates in the state. It has the seven-highest Amtrak ridership in the country, severe highway congestion, high population density and three major business hubs — Stamford, New Haven and Hartford.

Yet when the House last week approved a new Amtrak funding bill, it included funding to study a high-speed Boston-to-Washington line that would exclude Connecticut. The route would pass through, but trains would make no stops in the state.

Blumenthal said he'll work with a bipartisan group of senators to pass a Senate bill including a Connecticut stop. A conference committee would then negotiate a compromise version, and Blumenthal predicted the state's entire delegation at that point will press to get Connecticut back on the route.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said the House plan would be "dead on arrival." He has frequently cited better passenger rail service as important to the state's business recovery.

"The notion that a high-speed train would somehow go through our state, without stopping in our state, is, very simply, not happening," Malloy said in a statement.

Amtrak is only in the early stages of the cumbersome task of planning a faster, better passenger rail link through the heavily populated Northeast. All proposals so far have listed Boston, Manhattan, Philadelphia and Washington as stops, and Baltimore would almost certainly be included, as well. If the line follows the existing configuration along Connecticut's shoreline, the most likely stop in Connecticut would be New Haven or possibly Stamford. If a new line is built to the north, state leaders would want the stop in Hartford.

So far, though, a "next generation" Amtrak line through the Northeast is still speculative. The railroad estimated in 2012 that it would cost more than $150 billion, and Congress has not agreed on any plan to pay for that. However, the Northeast is the area where even many conservative Republican representatives support Amtrak, since ridership and revenue are both high.

In fiscal 2013, roughly 1.7 million Amtrak passengers boarded or disembarked in Connecticut; the only states with more were California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Some Democrats privately question whether the Republican Congress targeted Connecticut for partisan reasons. All five Connecticut Democratic representatives voted for it, though. With many of the GOP's most conservative leaders flatly opposed to federal aid to Amtrak, Congressional Democrats and some rail advocates were satisfied getting any legislation through.